Two tea shops in Virginia Beach getting cozy

The answering machine at Quintin's Tea Emporium tells callers to "have a tea-rrific day." At The English Rose Tea Room, the sentiment is similar: "Have a tea-tastic day."

The two Virginia Beach businesses, now about 10 miles apart, will soon create a veritable tea hub in the Rose Hall Shoppes on Virginia Beach Boulevard at Kings Grant Road. Quintin's is there now, and English Rose plans to move July 3 from the Kempsville area.

Like the British who are so closely associated with tea drinking, the competitors remain civilized about their pending proximity even as they look to extend their empires. Lauren Trimmer, Quintin's owner, welcomes the new neighbor "as a complementary business for people interested in tea," she said.

"They do food and we don't do food. We have more than 120 different types of loose-leaf teas, and they don't sell loose-leaf tea."

English Rose does sell loose teas, as well as some cups, pots, spoons and other accessories that overlap with Quintin's offerings. "If someone sees a teapot they like, I'll sell it," said Shari Yauneridge, the tea room's owner. "But I'm not big into the retail part of it."

Yauneridge said she plans to serve some of Quintin's selections at lunches or high teas and then send customers a few doors down to buy them. "If anything, it'll probably help both of us" to be in the same plaza, she said.